Shooby Taylor

Shooby Taylor was born in Indiana Township, Pennsylvania and, at an early age, moved with his family to Harlem, where he spent the majority of his life.[1] He entered the army in 1953 and began working for the U.S. Post Office following his discharge in 1955.[5] A long-time jazz fan, he claimed he heard sounds in his head and felt the need to express them. After attempting to learn the saxophone, he realized he could instead employ his voice as an instrument, declaring "I am the horn!"[5] He began studying at the Hartnett Music School in New York under the GI Bill, and performed at Harlem clubs and in Greenwich Village jam sessions, emulating the vocal style of Babs Gonzales.[1] He claimed to have gotten permission from Dizzy Gillespie to use the nickname "Shooby,"[5] and adopted the moniker "Shooby Taylor, The Human Horn."[6]

After retiring from the Post Office in the early 1970s, Taylor devoted his time to music, making numerous home recordings.[1] In 1983, Taylor briefly appeared on the show Amateur Night at the Apollo, but was booed off the stage after roughly twenty seconds.[1][5] At around that time, he paid multiple visits to Angel Sound Studios in New York, where he recorded a number of tracks, and where he came to the attention of studio engineer Craig Bradley, who recalled "I was attuned to the unusual... Shooby was an exciting character, someone you were drawn to right away."[7] Bradley later transferred the tracks to cassette and sent copies to WFMU manager Ken Freedman, who, with Irwin Chusid, began broadcasting and circulating them, leading to a growing cult following for Taylor and "generating a frothing fan base".[8] Taylor, however, was unaware of the publicity, and his fans were unaware of his whereabouts.[1] In 1992, Shooby moved to a senior complex in Newark, New Jersey, and in 1994, he experienced a stroke that crippled his scat skill, stopping him from recording and performing.[3]

In July 2002, Elektra Records executive and Taylor fan Rick Goetz managed to track Taylor down by cold calling every person named William Taylor in the New York area.[3] On August 28, 2002, Shooby appeared for a radio interview on WFMU, leading to further publicity.[9] Following the broadcast, Goetz and Chusid transferred a number of Taylor's home recordings to CD-R to preserve some of his legacy.[1] In September of that year, WFMU staff delivered birthday greetings to Taylor from fans around the world.[3]

Taylor died on June 4, 2003 at the VA Hospital in East Orange, New Jersey.[1][5] Plans for an official CD release of his work are still pending.

Marc Ferris wrote that Taylor's music can be "difficult to digest. As he tries to approximate the sound of a saxophone solo with his voice, he hits sour notes. He spits out nonsense syllables like a machine gun, communicating in a private language nearly impossible to imitate. And he rarely meshes with his background music."[3] Allmusic reviewer Jason Ankeny described his music as "singular and eccentric... equal parts nonsense words, off-tempo vocalese, and saxophone-inspired squawks."[1] Irwin Chusid wrote that Taylor's scatting "echoes Mother Goose nonsense simmering in a rich Afro-Yiddish stew."[10] According to Chusid, "Shooby's vocabulary is a whole 'nuther language. Some of his favorite scat syllables are 'Raw-shaw,' 'poppy-poppy,' and 'splaw,' sputtered in a virile baritone vaguely reminiscent of Dudley Do-Right, the chaos-prone Canadian Mountie," and "his lung capacity is staggering; he never pauses long enough to inhale as he spews out astonishing high-octane vocal runs."[4] Singer Joe Henry described Taylor's singing as "a cross between scat singing and speaking in tongues," stating that it was "unlike anything I've ever heard in my life. A lot of people who hear it think of it like a novelty, but I hear it as a man who's completely come out of a vacuum and developed an approach to music that's as unique as Charlie Parker... I can't stop listening to it. It's so full of a kind of passion that I can't even begin to describe."[11]

While scatting, Taylor would frequently mime playing an "air" saxophone.[10] Craig Bradley recalled that all of Taylor's recordings were first takes: "I think he was just winging it, improvising. So even if we did a second take, it wouldn't be to fix mistakes, it would just be a different version. But he was happy with his performance every time."[10]

The Adam and Joe Show, a UK TV series from the 1990s, used the first 4 seconds of Taylor's version of "Lift Every Voice and Sing", at the start of their theme tune.[7]

In the 2000 song "Walk & Chew Gum" by the band Optiganally Yours, there is a mention of "Shooby Taylor" in the last line of their scat-like bridge.[12]

In 2005, Taylor made a posthumous appearance on a split 7-inch EP by Xiu Xiu and The Dead Science.[13]

In the 2016 Illumination Entertainment animated film Sing, a recording of Taylor's rendition of "Stout Hearted Man" is used for one of the auditions.[14][15]

In 2019, Taylor was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 broadcast by Adam Buxton.[16]

Musicians Tom Waits and Marshall Crenshaw are fans of Taylor's music, with Crenshaw proclaiming Taylor "The King of Farfisa-Wielding, Outer-Space, Lunatic-Fringe Scat Singers."[7]

Taylor's music has permeated academic discourse on the role of songs in political change and insurrection. Taylor, whose music frequently refers to civil rights and black liberation, was cited by academic Simon Cross in a report on political song: Shooby doo wah', heard in the right mood, has more meaning than a flat-out protest song ever does'. [17]

• Ink Spots - You Were Only Foolin' / Miles Davis - The Theme / Wolfgang Mozart - Rondeau, Allegretto (cassette)
• Blowing My Mind (1970, Shooby Records, 45 RPM vinyl)[18]
• Expressing Myself (parts 1 & 2) as "Shooby Taylor the Human Instrument" (January 1971, Shooby Records)
• The Human Horn (and then some) - Dexter Gordon / Coltrane / Elvis (1980s, cassette)
• The Human Horn (and then some) - Johnny Cash (1980s, cassette)
• The Human Horn (and then some) - Country & Jazz (1980s, cassette)
• The Human Horn (2001, WFMU, cassette/MP3)[19]
• The Human Horn (Side One) (2017, Apple Music)[20]
• The Human Horn (Side Two) (2017, Apple Music)[21]

• Official website